We, the faculty members of the English Department, Lady Shri Ram College unequivocally and strongly support our student Gurmehar Kaur and her right to express her opinion on issues that embroil our university. It is immensely gratifying to us as her teachers that she has responded sensitively, creatively and bravely to events in her immediate context rather than seek the safe refuge of silence. We feel that it is the bounden duty of educational institutions to nurture sensitive, responsive and critical thinking students without the fear of violent retaliation. We are proud that Gurmehar has fulfilled her duty as a young citizen of this country. The threats of violence and brutality that she faces are absolutely reprehensible. Responses on social media by public figures such as VirendraSehwag and RandeepHooda are shameful trivialization of the intimidation that Gurmehar faces at the hands of violent mobs whose viciousness the university has recently witnessed.

We fervently appeal to the good sense of the public and to institutions of redressal to help restore our faith in law and justice in our country and let our young citizens think and articulate without fear of intimidation.

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The students and teachers of all educational institutes alongwith parents must express solidarity with the courageous girl and denounce strongly the threats and violence of right wing fanatics. It is deplorable that even politicians are trying to malign the girl. This is a sad state of democracy

Decided to leave Delhi, Delhi University student Gurmehar who has been under abuse and rape threat, tweeted to leave her alone. She came to the limelight after her brave stand against the violence and the undemocratic ways of the ABVP, the RSS student affiliate.
About her father, Capt. Mandeep Singh, a martyr in the Kargil war, she asserted it is not the Pakistani soldiers that killed him but the war. Perhaps easing her anger she targeted the war hawks of both regimes in India and Pakistan that snowballed in to the controversy. Minister of state for Home affairs Mr Kiren Rijiju compared her to Dawood Ibrahim who said, “I did not kill people in 1993. Bombs killed them”. Ridiculing her Cricketer Mr. Virender Sewag tweeted that his bat, and not he, had scored two triple ton. Actor Randeep Hooda alleged the girl being used as a pawn.
Her brave statement about the martyrdom of her father exposed the forces of the politics of war, the soldiers of the country are mere pawns in the hands of the powers that religiously legitimises and militarise our borders and the country as a whole, all in the name of Nationalism. Holding her head high and facing abuses and rape threats asked what that Nationalism is all about that drives many to rape those airing dissenting voices. Nationalism or even patriotism if they are just a ploy to smother the voices of freedom that opposes militarisation, exploitation, rape, hunger and so on the Constitution of the country would remain a bunch of meaningless papers.
Union minister Ravi Sankar Prasad, though apparently claim to defend the freedom of expression, came out agitating “we will tolerate everything but the talk of the disintegration of the Nation, No”. History shows that it was the communal divide that disintegrated the British India in to Pakistan and India. The Hindu Maha Sabha and the Hinduvadies in the congress should be blamed for it. They wanted a Hindustan. The short term goal of political power and the communal polarisation the strategy adopted to achieve it is the one that is going to disintegrate the Nation, perhaps in the future too. The so-called Nationalists might only yield such a result. Therefore the freedom of speech and the secular fabric of the nation should be held firm at any cost.
All ruling regimes are very much fed on the soldier’s martyrdom, a nutrient that keeps them going and growing. The regime buries the body of the dead soldier with state honours, a religious ritual in reality by which the regime’s legitimacy is honoured, rather than the honour of the dead soldier, in the name of Patriotism. The placards Gurmehar moved one after the other displayed, problematized and deconstructed the term patriotism. Let us be gracious to her and leave her alone, however she would remain the focal point for the country’s debate: people vs nation.
Regards.kmt.

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